Only an idiot (or a trained chef) allows their mind to wander when chopping an onion with a sharp knife. Most people who value their fingers concentrate intently on each slice as the already hazardous task becomes even more perilous once tears well up in their eyes.
Now imagine applying this same level of concentration at your next meeting. Impossible. Your mind has already wandered to lunch and the meeting hasn’t even started.
Cooking is a great way to train the mind, say psychologists. It helps to focus your brain on the present and prevent it from wandering, which helps to improve your concentration. So what better way to sharpen the grey matter than with a private cooking class with a Michelin-starred chef?
Last week, Jones the Grocer invited the British chef Theo Randall, currently behind Theo Randall at the InterContinental Hotel in London’s Mayfair, to the UAE to host a cooking class in its Dubai and Abu Dhabi restaurants. Dubai has become a culinary kaleidoscope, and the vibrantly competitive restaurant scene needs more than just great dishes or great prices to compete.
So many are experimenting with providing an “experience” while their customers tuck in, be it guacamole made fresh at the table or cheese appreciation groups. Jones the Grocer hosts weekly classes with its own chefs and twice a year, it offers up sessions with a world-renowned chef.
The two-hour long class began with cheese and cured meats over a brief meet and greet with participants, made up of keen cooks, complete amateurs and a couple looking for “something different” to do with their evenings after work.
Randall then introduced himself and the dishes we were going to make that evening – sea bass carpaccio and tagliatelle with beef fillet ragu bolognese. Spread over one big table, we each had our own little workspace and made a start on the first course along with Randall as he talked us through each step. Once the final bit of marjoram was sprinkled on the carpaccio, we were able to take a seat and enjoy our first culinary masterpiece as Jones’s staff cleared our stations ready for the second course – pasta.
Making your own pasta is demanding, but the sense of accomplishment is worth the time. So is the taste, and the tagliatelle ragu bolognese was just delightful.
Randall is by far one of the nicest, most humble chefs I’ve met. He was patient and explained each ingredient and every step clearly. There were no bleeding fingers in sight, just a bunch of satisfied diners who were happy to feast on their offerings after concentrating so hard on slicing sea bass into thin strips.
q&a the fine science of dining
Yunib Siddiqui, owner of the Jones the Grocer franchise in the UAE, discusses his business.
Why offer these classes?
We bring these chefs to do a menu for us, and we train our chefs on that menu as well. Which is what is happening this time. One of our business objectives is to educate people about food, where it comes from, how it’s made. We felt it was an extension of our business, of what we do in the kitchen. It is a way of trying to make people feel part of a foodie community.
What are the business benefits?
It’s a way of making our brand more sticky. We’ve always felt that we need to take our brand beyond the menu, take it somewhere customers don’t expect it to go. We try to hire people who can talk about the groceries and waiters who can talk more about the ingredients and chefs who can cook and teach classes.
What’s next for Jones the Grocer?
We have never done a major menu change, so we are actually doing that for the first time in four years in two months’ time. We will keep the basics, we will keep the Wagyu burger and the fish and chips, but there will be changes that will affect the entire menu. We will make it edgy.
You have five restaurants in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai. Are there more in the pipeline?
We’re opening another restaurant in Dubai in the Etihad check-in centre on Sheikh Zayed Road and another in Abu Dhabi in the Al Muneera Etihad Plaza.
thamid@thenational.ae
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